Rounding out the series, this week’s Deep Dive looks at their geography.
Given the Trump Administration’s shift toward centralized political oversight of funding decisions, a reasonable question has been whether these discretionary grants are shifting in ways that map to political geography.
Laura’s analysis digs into that question over the most recent three years for which there are data, with some surprising takeaways.
In addition to patterns for federal funding, we’re also always on the lookout for the deeper patterns across the intel we analyze for you.
Our newest premium resource, the latest Wonk Intelligence Quarterly (WIQ), gives you a wealth of actionable insights in deeper patterns and trends we’re seeing.
On our most recent WonkCast I talked with think tank executive and former agency leader Aly Rau Brodsky, about child-centric policy design.
We’ve got several signals to track this week on health financing, grants, and “hidden foster care”.
On top of punting a funding fight until the lame duck, it would delay implementation of a proposed rule to codify centralized political control of grants and contracts.
The Senate may vote this week; much remains up in the air and challenges remain.
Let’s get after it.
Weekly Wonk Deep Dive
The Geography of Children’s Bureau Discretionary Grants
To date there has been little geographic shift in Children’s Bureau grantmaking, but that could change with FY 2026 awards.
By Laura Radel, Senior Contributor
Federal discretionary grants are not designed to be distributed evenly across states. Their geography reflects who applies, which organizations are equipped to compete, and where large national grantees are based.
Even so, the distribution is worth watching.
From FY 2023 through FY 2025, Children’s Bureau awards were divided relatively evenly between red and blue states.1
The dollars were not — largely because most large technical-assistance and Quality Improvement Center awards, the largest layer of discretionary grant funding, went to organizations in blue states.
This final installment in our three-part series examines that geographic pattern and establishes a baseline ahead of a potentially consequential round of FY 2026 awards worth watching closely.
WHEN POLITICS ENTERS THE GRANT PROCESS
Unlike entitlement or formula programs which distribute funds in geographic patterns prescribed by Congress, competitive discretionary grants are distributed following expert reviews using statutory and agency criteria.
Agency leaders also have some authority to depart from review scores.
In recent months, the Trump Administration has proposed giving political appointees greater influence over grantmaking, and moved to withhold child care funding from several Democrat-led states.
Ahead of the FY 2026 awards, this analysis explores and establishes a baseline for the geographical distribution of Children’s Bureau discretionary grants in recent years.
That geography is shaped by more than federal decision-making.
Most grants go to local nonprofits or county-level entities rather than to state governments, making the red-blue divide less straightforward than it is for formula or entitlement funding.
Some grants target specific recipients, such as tribal governments.
Others prioritize communities facing particular challenges, like child trafficking or high rates of maltreatment related to substance misuse, or applicants well-positioned to expand the evidence base.
Matching fund requirements and access to strong university research partners can also affect which organizations apply — and where successful applicants are located.
The composition of the portfolio matters, too.
As Part I showed, the largest awards generally go to technical assistance.
Because the pool of technical assistance providers in the child welfare space is relatively concentrated, those awards further influence the distribution of funding.
WHERE GRANTEES ARE – AND AREN’T
Figure 1 shows the geographic distribution of Children’s Bureau discretionary grantees from FY 2023 through FY 2025.
States in the lightest purple had no grantees during the three-year period.
States in medium purple had one to three grantees in at least one year, while those in dark purple had four or more in at least one year.
The pattern was relatively consistent from year to year, in part because grants generally run for three- to five-years. An award in one year is therefore likely to appear again in subsequent years. Still, the gaps are notable.
Some of the largest states, including Georgia and Texas, had no discretionary grantees in any of these years.
California, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota and Washington each had at least four grantees in all three years.
AWARDS WERE DIVIDED RELATIVELY EVENLY
Figure 2 shows how grant awards were divided between states considered red (Republican-leaning), blue (Democrat-leaning) and purple (swing states) in each of fiscal years 2023, 2024 and 2025.
In each of the years, 15 to 16 percent of grant awards went to purple states. The rest were divided relatively evenly between red and blue states, with blue states receiving a slightly larger share in 2024 than in either 2023 or 2025.
These differences were small. With 86 to 101 grants awards each year, a one-percentage-point shift represents roughly one grant.
And because there were few new awards in 2025, that year’s changes largely reflect grants ending rather than new awards beginning.
THE DOLLARS TELL A DIFFERENT STORY
Dollar-wise, the story is considerably different.
As shown in Part I of this series, technical assistance grants are much larger than service grants, representing nearly half of discretionary funding. The organizations receiving those awards are also geographically concentrated.
In FY 2025, 13 of the 14 technical-assistance (TA) and Quality Improvement Center (QIC) grants were in blue states and the 14th was in a purple state, with similar patterns in FYs 2023 and 2024.
As shown in Figure 3, this means that Children’s Bureau grant funding flowed heavily to blue states — 75 percent in FY 2025.
When TA and QIC funding is excluded, dollar amounts are much more evenly distributed: 49 percent went to red states, 41 percent to blue states, and 10 percent to purple states.
WHAT THE THREE-YEAR PICTURE SHOWS
Across the series, the larger pattern is not a dramatic partisan redirection of Children’s Bureau grants. It is a smaller portfolio increasingly concentrated in large technical-assistance and national awards, issued later in the fiscal year.
Service awards remained relatively evenly distributed between red and blue states.
The concentration of dollars in blue states largely reflects where technical-assistance centers and Quality Improvement Centers are based — not a broader geographic tilt across the portfolio.
FY 2026 could alter that balanced picture.
With many new awards expected before September 30, the final weeks of the fiscal year will show whether the recent patterns persist — or whether a new grantmaking approach is beginning to emerge.
We’ll be digging in to see whether the pattern holds, or there are signals of a deeper shift.
From the Wonk Briefing Room
Wonk Intelligence Quarterly, July 2026
BY ZACH LARIS, FOUNDER & PRESIDENT
With so much ongoing analysis and intel, there’s a benefit to stepping back and clarifying some of the bigger-picture trends and dynamics that matter.
This one looks across the recurring patterns we’ve been seeing in our written work and WonkCast conversations with leaders.
What emerged is three deeper trends essential to know for your work:
#1: Plan for federal power to grow more centralized and informal;
#2: Prepare for the old policy order’s tipping point; and
#3: Refocus from authority to execution capability.
Decisionmakers share that they get the best use out of Wonk Intelligence Quarterly when integrating it directly into meetings and conversations about strategy and decisions.
We’ve designed this one to make that easy, with a concise analysis of three essential patterns leaders across child and family policy need to be thinking about and guidance for how you can design strategy and decision discussions around them.
To read the full brief and access all our premium resources, join the Wonk Briefing Room. Individuals can sign up here, or get the team membership rate here.
Organizations interested in going even deeper can reach out to learn more about our partnerships that help you leverage and apply our intel in your strategy.
Wonkatizer
Signals of Squeeze on Health Financing
What Happened
As states prepare for less federal Medicaid funding and implementation of reporting requirements related to work, the health system is facing further fiscal strain.
Since 2025, the number of uninsured Americans rose 41 percent, with falling Affordable Care Act enrollment as a key driver.
Why it Matter
This is before federal funding for Medicaid drops, and it has second-order effects that matter for Medicaid.
As hospitals and other health providers face the cash crunch of fewer insured patients, they will be even less favorably positioned to weather those cuts.
What to Watch
Municipal bonds and hospital earnings forecasts.
Rising bond yields will suggest state debt has more risk priced in. Hospitals are already signaling concerns; further expectations updates are worth watching,
Last-Minute Grants for Last-Mile Capacity
What Happened
ACF announced up to $4 million in competitive funding for up to 20 grants to modernize fingerprinting technology.
These are discretionary dollars that jurisdictions can use to secure mobile and office-based fingerprinting equipment. That targets a key rate limiting step in kin licensure.
Why it Matters
Two reasons. First, it’s a demonstration of Laura Radel’s point last week; a 30-day application window for a down-to-the-wire expenditure connected to admin priorities.
How many jurisdictions are able to turn around applications and how they deploy new capacity to break licensure bottlenecks,
New Report on Kinship Diversion/”Hidden Foster Care”
What Happened
A new brief from ChildTrends maps which states can actually see kinship diversion in their own data.
Diversion, also known as “Hidden Foster Care”, is a practice where a relative cares for a child the state hasn’t formally placed with them, or necessarily removed from their family.
What they Found
Across interviews with 15 states, nearly all confirmed using some form of diversion. Just over half Data that could reliably characterize cases of diversion.
The report connects the limits and limitations of this data to policy and legal structures; because parents retain legal custody, these are cases that don’t trigger federal reporting requirements.
A frequent narrative around the national decline in children in and entering care is that it reflects prevention and/or timely or permanency.
Diversion complicates that story; our lack of insight into the extent of this practice means we don’t know whether or to what extent a rise in kinship diversion could explain changes in foster care data.
What to Watch
The report’s central suggestion is a voluntary policy guidance on state classification and reporting of diversion.
It’s worth watching how ACF discusses and characterizes this issue in its data-driven approach to the A Home for Every Child initiative.
It’s also worth watching state activity on this, which is more likely to ripen in the near term, including recent policy making in Colorado.
We also have an upcoming WonkCast on kinship care, with relevance for this issue that you won’t want to miss.
That’s it for this week.
Stay sharp, Wonks.
~ Z
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